Daynote - Thu 15th Aug 2024
Four weeks to go, what.
Reminder! Four weeks to go! Come to my book launch!
Well, WorldCon was incredible, even though I left early. I'll write a fuller post at some point talking about everything I did and saw and all the people I got to speak to, but if you're an author wondering if WorldCon is worth going to when it's near you, I can answer unequivocally yes. I intended to stay until Monday but started feeling ill on the Sunday afternoon and decided to go home, rather than risk infecting anyone if I had Covid. I've tested negative for five days now, so I think it may have just been the result of four very intense 12 hour+ days in a row and staying up way later than I usually do, but I'm mostly feeling fine now.
ON DECK: Very, very slow back into the writing this week - just been doing bits and bobs of marketing work. I'll make a start on the sample for PROJECT SCARLET hopefully tomorrow, but then I'm taking an actual honest-to-goodness week off next week, with no intention of doing any writing. I may do some calls and bookshop visits (since the Edinburgh Book Festival is on and we'll likely go into town) but I really, really need an actual break before plunging into the final three weeks of pre-publication work.
LISTENING: Currently catching up on a backlog of podcasts after WorldCon.
WATCHING: I discovered recently that the seminal 1995 series SPACE: ABOVE AND BEYOND (which set the stage for the Battlestar Galactica remake ten years later) is on Youtube in its entirety, and has been remastered. Some of the sets are a bit wobbly, but it's pretty great. I watched a bit of it while I was sick after WorldCon.
READING: Still working on SPOOK STREET, but I have a stack of books acquired at WorldCon and EXTREMOPHILE by Ian Green and NINTH LIFE by Stark Holborn are currently vying for next read.
UP NEXT: A day of drafting on PROJECT SCARLET, then as above, holiday. We will hopefully get away for a night or two for my wife's birthday, but mostly I'm hoping to just chill for a few days and get the rest that will let me handle the travel, events and large amounts of Being Perceived I'm about to experience. I can't wait but it's also kind of daunting. And FOUR WEEKS from today, actual readers will have my actual book in their actual hands! Bonkers.